Recent Work Update
This summer, I focused on creating small and mid-sized pieces in my studio, working with new arrangements of objects, materials, and creative units, as well as reworked paintings and fragmented floating creations. I continued to delve into non-linear processes and rhizomatic approaches, developing assemblages, collages, and juxtapositions that integrate poetic visual language while exploring the interplay between digital and physical realms, material and immaterial elements, alongside hopping across different dimensions and the logic of creative media, like a trespasser of different territories.
As with most of my previous work, these pieces resist a singular point of reference, though certain materials and contexts may stand out more prominently in specific pieces.
The works incorporate a range of intertwined narratives and logics, including:
Inspiration from Japan’s power structures
Folklore beliefs surrounding material transformation
The artist’s engagement with daily consumption and manual, non-artistic crafts
Quasi-spirituality
Encounters with people, remarks, incidents, and materials from my personal life
Together, these elements create an enigmatic and open structure, inviting diverse interpretations and new meanings.
100-year Forest, Power line insulators on excavated cupboard doors, paper mounts from a discarded picture book of the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery Mural Collection, featuring circle-cut tracing paper with traces of digital shadows, silver leaf, and coloured silver leaf, all attached to a wooden panel, 149.5 x 90.5cm, 2024
The abstract wall mount piece investigates quasi-spirituality and folklore beliefs about material transformation, uncovering cryptic connections between these ideas and the internalized, entangled power structures intertwined with religious and political elements in contemporary society.
Background/Contextual Information on the Paper Mounts:
The Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery (聖徳記念絵画館, Seitoku Kinen Kaigakan) in Tokyo is dedicated to commemorating the Meiji Emperor. The gallery is located at the site of the Emperor's funeral within the Meiji Shrine.
[The Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery: Mural Collection (Inui)]
Published in 1932, the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery: Mural Collection (Inui) presents reproductions of 40 paintings from the original 80 housed at the gallery. Each print is individually mounted on a paper sheet and stored in a box. The collection illustrates scenes from the life of Emperor Meiji and key historical events of that era.
[Context of the Paper Mounts in the Artwork:]
The box containing the paper mounts, complete with the print reproductions attached, was discovered in a corridor at the local university where the artist teaches. The box, in a badly worn and damaged condition, was part of a pile of unwanted books donated by locals.
The paper mounts, 92 years old, have naturally aged over time along with the prints. They feature a central rectangular embossed area, designed to hold the prints of the paintings.
Critically, the original paintings were intended to reinforce power structures and the deification of Emperor Meiji. The reproductions, however, lack the physicality of the originals and serve instead as immaterial avatars—multiplying and dispersing the authority originally contained in the paintings. After the print reproductions were carefully removed from the mounts, the concave areas in these now-vintage and discoloured paper mounts, with their unique patina, seem to subtly carry the compressed remnants of power structures, holding within them the phantoms of past authority.
[About the Traced Lines]
The traced lines from the digital montages on the circle-cut found tracing paper serve as afterimages or shadows of an immaterial digital entity. These incomplete traces form various new shapes, representing open structures that diverge from the temporarily fixed digital configurations.
The rhythmic, footstep-like lines resonate with the context of the paper mounts, collectively evoking the presence of immaterial power and ephemeral entities.
Memory Maps, 2024
Found frame and found wooden stick excavated from local environments in Onomichi, suntanned felt collage on upcycled cardboard
38.5 x 31.3 cm, with an attached wooden stick measuring 87.3 cm
DESCRIPTION/COMMENTARY
The term excavated refers to a process in which objects—ranging from finely crafted antiques to more mundane or damaged materials—are collected by a local NPO from derelict houses in Onomichi during renovation projects. These objects, imbued with the memories of past residents, are preserved in storage. Yutaka Inagawa visited this facility and selected materials that intrigued him or presented potential for his artwork. Thus, the excavation process involved both the initial collection by the NPO and Yutaka's own selection and repurposing.
The phrase “suntanned” indicates that the felt collage has been exposed to the sun for a certain period, causing its colors to fade naturally over time.
The felt collage is derived from digital montage images created by Yutaka Inagawa. Simplified figures of these montages represent the process of translating digital images into physical felt material. This adaptation reveals the shadow of the digital entity while embedding traces of time through sun exposure over a period.
Memory Maps with Painter's Torn Heart, 2024
Excavated wooden sliding door from local environments in Onomichi, spray-painted timber, repurposed and cursed wooden stretchers from a local disenchanted painter painter, suntanned felt collage, drawing, and coloured silver leaf on upcycled furniture from the artist’s domestic environment.
38.5 x 31.3 cm, with an attached wooden stick measuring 87.3 cm
DESCRIPTION/COMMENTARY
The term "disenchanted painter" refers to a local artist who, disillusioned by his career, discarded his paintings by chopping them into pieces. Although these fragments were discarded, I salvaged the wooden stretchers—now merely timber—which still carry a sense of irony and hostility towards his own work. These repurposed materials, with their embedded narrative of disillusionment, now contribute to the artwork’s new context, perhaps seen as "cursed objects" in a humorous, yet poignant sense.
*Note: The information regarding the excavation process and felt collage for "Memory Maps with Painter's Torn Heart, 2024" is consistent with that provided for "Memory Maps, 2024."
Compound Wooden Lenses, 68.5 x 53.5 cm, 2024
Excavated wooden fitting from local environments in Onomichi, oil on canvas
Description/Commentary:
*See the work "Memory Map" for an explanation of the term "excavated."
The painting, originally completed in 2018 and given a new form in 2024, depicting selected digital montages from Yutaka’s extensive digital archive. These montages serve as a personal re-mapping of digital timestamps, creating new formation of timelines within a digital era.
While these montages explore the inherent mutability and infinite editability of digital entities, painting them onto canvas raises questions about what is lost or transformed when these fluid, digital-born figures are reincarnated as static "oil paintings”—sort of mummified stack in the fixed posture.
The excavated wooden fitting, mounted onto the painting, adds a further dimension. Its latticework overlays the upper half of the painted surface, generate a new meanings with a series of physical "windows" that offer multiple perspectives and layers to the composition, adding depth and complexity to the overall configuration.
Hunting Trophies, 2024
Juxtaposition of two pieces:
Left: 28.3 x 35.5 cm, Excavated object, resin clay sculpture, acrylic paint on an excavated Shogi (Japanese chess) board
Right: 42.7 x 34 cm, Rabbit skin glue on a used coffee filter, used bamboo cloth, coloured pencil on a paper mount from a discarded picture book of the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery: Mural Collection
See the work "100-Year Forest" for more on the paper mounts.
See the work "Memory Map" for an explanation of the term "excavated."
About the small sculpture:
The resin clay sculpture was crafted by a modeler based on sketches and instructions provided by the artist. These sketches were derived from one of the digital montages in the artist's archive.
On Reworking Existing Paintings
In the original version of the painting, the digital composition and blueprint—including color schemes, intertwined layering, and detailed images—created in Photoshop largely determined the initial outcome.
The reworking, however, was guided by the understanding that while a digital creation may appear complete, painting operates within a different mode of working formula.
The digital eloquence, once transferred onto the canvas, loses its initial coherence and enters a realm of the language of painting, often governed by the illogical and uncanny. The transformation isn't merely about the shift from digital to material but rather the differences in dimension and potential landing points. Painting, with its physicality, demands responses that allow for poetic eloquence, visceral and cognitive but yet corporeal, existing within the peripheral zone of unpredictable logic. In this reworking, drastic changes became necessary, not to better mirror the digital, but to bring forth a state of being that honors the painting’s own unique voice and uncanniness.
Stratigrapher#1, 2024
Left: 30 x 42.4 cm, Excavated sliding door of cupboard, baked resin clay
Right: 53 x 53 cm, Oil, aluminum leaf, coloured silver leaf on canvas, Original 2018, Reworked 2024
Detail of Stratigrapher#1
Description/Commentary:
The painting presents a reimagined digital space, where oil paint and fractured layers of coloured silver leaf and aluminium leaf come together to depict a fragmented, semi-abstract cyberscape. Pencil lines trace the outlines of a shadowed digital structure, dividing the composition into sections, which are then intuitively filled with a pictorial vocabulary applied by brushstrokes.
This process ruptures and reconfigures the digital imagery, transforming it into a cognitive space that exists somewhere between abstraction and depiction. Juxtaposed with the excavated sliding door, the work becomes a mechanism for generating new meanings and enigmatic connections, encouraging viewers to interpret its layered narratives.
Detail of Stratigrapher#1
Stratigrapher #2, 2024
Left: 28 x 41 cm, Excavated cupboard sliding door, baked resin clay, aluminum foil, trimmed timber
Right: 53 x 53 cm, Oil, coloured silver leaf on canvas, Original 2018, Reworked 2024
Note: Description/Commentary is consistent with Stratigrapher #1.
Detail of Stratigrapher#1
Disjuncture Vessel, 2024
Canvas size: 53×53cm, Oil on canvas, shaped wood,
Oil painting: Original 2009, Resized & Cropped 2024
Impersonating Cookie Dough, 2024
Originally painted in 2014 and reworked in 2024.
Left: 61 × 73 cm, Right: 61 × 61 cm
felt, used coffee filters, rabbit skin glue, and oil on canvas.
It’s the Word “One Day” #2, 2024
Canvas: Left: 32 × 41.5 cm, Right: 27.5 × 41.4 cm, Total length with polyester black rope: 130 cm
Felt, oil on canvas, polyester rope
Many Sleepless Nights #2, 2024
Original 2013, Resized & Cropped 2022
canvas size: 60.5x58cm, Oil on Canvas, shaped wood
Chess Ranging From Very Directional Holes, 2024
(h × w × d) 57.5 × 31 × 31 cm
Household paint on 20 circle-cut lumbercore plywood, fluorescent light-gathering acrylic board, wood, coloured silver leaf, graphite, coloured pencil on ice lolly stick consumed by three children.
*About the Titling Process
The title for this piece emerged from a playful interaction where my son practiced his typing skills using a software program. The software instructed him to randomly select and type various words, which I simultaneously wrote down. I then grouped these words, following the order in which they appeared, resulting in multiple absurd title candidates, from which I selected the one that ultimately became the title of the work.
I'm Going Home, None of Them Are My Fingerprints, 2024
(H × W × D) 60.5 × 31 × 31 cm
Household paint on 25 circle-cut lumbercore plywood, laser-cut text on plywood, acrylic on resin, metal plate on discarded plastic calligraphy box, fluorescent light-gathering acrylic board.
*About the Titling Process
The title for this piece emerged from a playful interaction where my son practiced his typing skills using a software program. The software instructed him to randomly select and type various words, which I simultaneously wrote down. I then grouped these words, following the order in which they appeared, resulting in multiple absurd title candidates, from which I selected the one that ultimately became the title of the work.
Sculptural assemblage composed of fragmented and rearranged elements from previous installation works, sculptural configurations, and creative units originally used to construct complex exhibition structures as a creative medium.
The Japanese word "する" (suru) is a versatile verb with multiple meanings, which include:
To cause or make something happen.
To change the state or condition of something.
To become (as in an automatic process).
To express transformation (e.g., "A becomes B").
To feel sensations like sound, taste, or smell.
To indicate the presence of a good smell or physical symptoms like headache or nausea.
To denote a price (e.g., "It costs one million yen").
To indicate wearing something (e.g., clothes or accessories).
To describe covering something, like a lid.
To indicate the passing of time in conditional clauses.
To express doing something shortly after (e.g., "I’ll do it in ten minutes").
Used in compound verbs for adjectives (e.g., "to make the room clean").
To describe deciding or assuming something.
To express actions or assertions (e.g., "The minister said...").
To realize or perform a bodily function (e.g., to see, hear, eat).
Be Slightly Offended and Somewhat Offended, 2024
(H × W × D) 51.5 × 71 × 31 cm
Excavated fragmented wooden house components (door rail and timber), felt, coloured silver leaf, cutout circle from oil paint, graphite on ice lolly stick consumed by three children, enamel leather fabric, cotton, fluorescent light-gathering acrylic board.
*Sculptural assemblage composed of fragmented and rearranged elements from previous installation works, sculptural configurations, and creative units originally used to construct complex exhibition structures as a creative medium.
About the Titling Process
The title for this piece emerged from a playful interaction where my son practiced his typing skills using a software program. The software instructed him to randomly select and type various words, which I simultaneously wrote down. I then grouped these words, following the order in which they appeared, resulting in multiple absurd title candidates, from which I selected the one that ultimately became the title of the work.
Seaweed Pillow#1
100 x 77 cm, 2022
Used wooden panel from a repurposed bookshelf from the artist's home, "cursed" wooden stretchers from a local disenchanted painter, tracing paper with digital shadow traces, inkjet print on corner-trimmed A3 paper, coloured pencil and cutout oil paint on paper palette on a paper mount from a discarded picture book of the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery: Mural Collection.
Seaweed Pillow #2
103 x 99 cm, 2022
Used wooden panel from a repurposed bookshelf from the artist's home, "cursed" wooden stretchers from a local disenchanted painter, tracing paper with digital shadow traces, inkjet print on corner-trimmed A3 paper, coloured pencil, cutout-laser print, and cutout oil paint on paper palette on a paper mount from a discarded picture book of the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery: Mural Collection
Title Context and Description: "Seaweed Pillow"
The title Seaweed Pillow is derived from an intriguing mistranslation of the original story behind the first portable shrine (mikoshi) in Japan. The story recounts how a sacred pillow, originally made from makomo (Manchurian wild rice), was crafted by a priest during the Hayato Rebellion in 720 AD. This pillow was carried within the mikoshi as a sacred object symbolizing the spirit of the Hachiman deity, becoming part of Japan’s earliest mikoshi tradition.
The mistranslation of "Manchurian wild rice" to "seaweed" piqued my interest, leading me to adopt Seaweed Pillow as the title.
The work draws inspiration from the mikoshi—a vehicle for deities with faded religious significance—that continues to play a prominent role in traditional festivals across Japan. The structural characteristics of the two pieces in Seaweed Pillow #1–2 are loosely based on elements of the mikoshi, with an aesthetic that suggests a flattened and condensed version of the portable shrine.
[Below is an additional text about the city I currently live in and how the places I've lived have influenced me.]
About Onomichi(Genearal Depiction)
Onomichi is a picturesque port city located in the Seto Inland Sea, known for its historic charm and scenic views. Surrounded by three mountains and the islands on the opposite shore, Onomichi has flourished as a key port since the Heian period, benefiting from the Onomichi Waterway, which passes through the town like a “river of the sea.” This has made the town a hub for people, goods, and wealth for centuries.
The city is renowned for its maze of narrow streets, steep slopes, and alleyways that connect traditional temples, shrines, and residences, offering a glimpse into the town’s rich medieval and modern history. These winding paths lead to stunning views, unique cafes, and quaint shops, creating a "miniature garden city" feel. Onomichi has long attracted writers, filmmakers, and artists, who are inspired by its nostalgic atmosphere and views of the Setonaikai Sea.
Popular walking routes in Onomichi take visitors past its many temples, some of which date back as far as the 7th century, such as Jodoji Temple and Saikokuji Temple.
Today, Onomichi also serves as a starting point for the famous Shimanami Kaido cycling route, which connects Honshu to Shikoku via a series of bridges and islands, attracting cyclists from around the world.
Context: Artistic and Cultural Influences
I grew up in Tokyo until the age of 26, before moving to London in 2000 to pursue an MA in Fine Art. While I completed my BA in Tokyo, it was in London that my artistic career truly began. The city's rich cultural diversity and vibrant artist community during my time there from 2000 to 2009 profoundly shaped my interest as an artist-curator, particularly in the realms of mistranslation, cultural consumption, and intercultural discourse. Tokyo, on the other hand, with its chaotic and "grotesque" mash-up of cultural fragments—marked by twisted consumption, mutations, and things in mid-transition—was an early source of inspiration, fueling my motivation to become an artist.
After 12 years of living in Onomichi, the city’s environment and cultural layers have increasingly influenced my creative output, adding new logics and proximity to certain cultural aspects. Onomichi is home to over 500 derelict houses scattered across its hillsides, alongside historical temples and shrines. These areas, inaccessible by car and half-reclaimed by nature, have become untouchable spaces, merging with invading greenery and evoking a sense of folklore and animism. Over time, these decaying structures and forgotten objects resemble tsukumogami—spirits that inhabit old, long-lived objects, a concept deeply rooted in Japanese folklore.
In a somewhat humorous or nonsensical way, the hills of Onomichi feel sacred, not because of the temples and shrines, but because of these abandoned objects, which seem to accumulate their own spiritual presence as time passes. Meanwhile, small, fragmented communities consisting of renovation NPOs, creatives, and slow-lifers are forming their own niche societies, reminiscent of the isolated villages in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village (2004). Onomichi is far from a paradise—beneath its serene and nostalgic exterior lie many layers of complexity and human behavior that form its real, lived experience.
While animism or shamanism are not direct references in my work, I am fascinated by the illogical fears, faded faith and quasi-spirituality embedded in the cultural landscape. These elements reflect broader behavioral patterns in contemporary society. I am particularly interested in the ontological aspects of this quasi-spirituality and its relationship to the immaterial digital realm and its inhabitants. Those invasion of immaterial force, is tactile in this digitized society more and more with the mobile phone and AI. My work explores how cognitive systems and (power) structural dynamics —both visible and internalized—are parallel to complexity of the reality and its interconnectedness. Illogicality and nonsensicality is a force to shake the simplified categolization and push it toward the edge of entropy, where more possible states and its resonated vibrations are generated.